Why do LED bulbs suck?

I get it.  Everything is made in China now.  Some of those things are fine, others are not.

I bought my house in 2017.  First thing I did was go through and replace every bulb with LEDs.  Most of the house is recessed lighting except the bedroom, bathroom, and basement.  For the most part, the recessed flood bulbs have been good, but one died in the kitchen.  But the bathroom vanity light which has two R7S style is now on it's seventh bulb replacement.  I have tried four different random Amazon LEDs that were failures out of the box, and now on three Phillips (apparently made by Feit electric) replacements which are equally short-lived.

I did a similar thing with my Express van.  I bought all LED replacement bulbs for exterior and interior (except dash lighting).  I have now had to replace four of them in two years, and it doesn't seem to matter if I get Amazon cheapies or expensive Phillips or Sylvania from the FLAPS

Same exact thing with my RV.  I got all LEDs for interior lights to make the battery last a bit longer without shore power.  They suck.

Save thing with my theater.  I often do the LED version of a bulb for things like a floor lamp on the set, or lobby lighting, to minimize the chances of a bulb dying which is a distraction to a performance, and also to reduce heat and the chances of fire.  They can also be sourced with plastic globes which means there can't be broken glass on a set which can be very disruptive.  The likelihood of that bulb acting funny, dying, or causing other issues is about the same as an incandescent.

Why do they suck donkey balls?

It seems to me that about 1 out of 7 house bulbs is a dud, plus they seem to dim with age.

I like the bulbs that go out, then light up when you unscrew it, so you leave it and 2 weeks later it's out again.  

While we're here.  The electric company in the Chicago western suburbs had a bulb program that you paid for on your bill then redeemed them for new bulbs at some random local pharmacy.  

I was convinced they used excess electricity thus generating more money for the utility.  Like the big block Chevy's of the light bulb world.  Then my dad had 300 bulbs in packages when we moved him.  Then nobody wanted them cause they were 15 and 100 watt old school bulbs as he used up all the 70 watt bulbs.

You're unlucky? I switched circa 2018 probably, maybe even earlier I really don't remember, with mostly Walmart brand bulbs. Don't think I've had any go bad other than maybe one outdoor bulb. And I'm not even sure if that was led, if it was it was probably an indoor bulb being used outdoors and on 24/7 so can't be too upset about it. On cars I've mostly only ever had oem led bulbs but I haven't had any die. The one bulb I've replaced in recent memory was an incandescent turn signal bulb, it burning out was how I learned it wasn't led.

I'm sure that now that I've posted this I'm going to wake up tomorrow and every single bulb in my house will be blown out.

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

Why do they suck donkey balls?

The company that sells fewer LED bulbs goes out of business.

I have not seen that myself, but I can certainly say the household LED's are WAY better then those horrible compact fluorescents.  Those things failed at a ridiculous rate!

How clean is your power at home? Mix of old and new wiring? How's the local transformer, at or near its limit? With problems like that you either have crap luck with bulbs, or Id suspect some sort of power issues, voltage spikes, weird frequency changes or some such.

In reply to RevRico :

I just googled whole house power line conditioner and found an interesting variety of options from the company with the curved weiner on the box. 

In reply to OHSCrifle :

I was killing 4 foot LED tubes here left and right the first year we moved in, mostly that were plugged into a fuse box. Replaced the fuse box with a sub panel and fresh feed wires, then called the power company about an unrelated matter and they discovered our local transformer was at its limit so they replaced it, and I haven't had any issues since. Not sure which was the fix, but it's fixed now.

When we bought our house, Lowe's had a sale on LED bulbs for $1 a piece for Black Friday.  I got all that I could (12 was the limit) and gradually replaced bulbs in the house as they went out.  Our power company sent some LED bulbs about a year ago so I've been using those.  The ones from the power company have already died while I have some of the original Lowe's ones (which were cheap) are still going.  I also have a ceiling fan that has a dimmer that EATS LED bulbs (maybe last 1-2 months).  Run the standard incandescent and they last a reasonable time (1-2 years). 

At this point, I'm sure it has something to do with power supply but I'm not going to be putting extra $$ into this house at the moment.  

red_stapler said:

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

Why do they suck donkey balls?

The company that sells fewer LED bulbs goes out of business.

I'm sure it's a factor and you could find some fancy high-end or DIY'ed LED bulbs that don't have the cheapest sketchiest power conversion electronics possible on board. It would surprise me exactly none if in a decade or so we find out that the manufacturers met and colluded on that just like they did on incandescent bulb life.

Meanwhile LED lights in cars continue to run for decades, because if their power source was that crappy the car would fry the ECU too.

I bought my first three compact fluorescents from a company called Durotest, back before you could find them in regular stores. They were rated at something like 10,000 hours of life and set me back about $20 each in 1997, or so. All three surpassed their hour life with the last one dying 10 or 12 years after I bought it, even though used every day. Durotest primarily made florescent tubes for subway stations and bulbs for traffic lights. Things where the labor cost to replace is 10 times higher than the most expensive bulb, so life matters.

Most cfls that I bought at the grocery store died inside a year.

Our culture accepts that we pay money to buy E36 M3, so we get companies that make E36 M3. Companies that focus on quality go out of business because enough consumers prefer to pay less and buy E36 M3. Why do LEDs suck? The same reason aftermarket CV axles suck.

None of this is news to anyone, though, so perhaps I should have just rambled on in the rant thread, instead.

matthewmcl said:

Companies that focus on quality go out of business because enough consumers prefer to pay less and buy E36 M3. Why do LEDs suck? The same reason aftermarket CV axles suck.

This^^

It's the race to the bottom. Even the best companies have cheapened their products to compete with the bottom basement brands. 

The first LEDs I bought were floodlights for the backyard. They are 10+ years old at this point and still going strong despite daily use. They were also expensive. 

You can't find expensive bulbs anymore. They are all cheap and they all fail. One day people will realize that you frequently get exactly what you pay for.

Pay E36 M3, get E36 M3. 

I've had great luck with LEDs personally but, to matt's point, the problem is that, while I would be happy to pay more for quality, I have no way to know if I'm paying more for something better or simply paying more.  In practice, I do buy name brand (GE, Sylvania) LEDs because they're not that much more than the cheapest stuff but, for all I know, they're coming out of the exact same factories.  I could just be paying for the label.

If I had to guess, and I'm just guessing, I'd say it's the power in your house. At my house in Michigan (built in 1956) I swapped in all LED bulbs. I was replacing a bulb a month. It was insane. I doubt I got more than about 1.5 years from a bulb.
I'm in Florida now, house built in 1996 or so. I haven't had to replace a LED bulb yet, we've been here a year and 8 months or so. 

New light bulbs have some outrageous claim like they last for 7 years.  Because of this I've made it habit to mark replaced builds with a date written in black sharpie marker on the white base.

In general, bulbs last pretty long in my house.  Maybe clean power?  

It's not like I'm gonna make a warranty claim if the bulb fails in 5 years of 7 years.  I just do it for curiosity sake. 

John Welsh said:

New light bulbs have some outrageous claim like they last for 7 years.  Because of this I've made it habit to mark replaced builds with a date written in black sharpie marker on the white base.

In general, bulbs last pretty long in my house.  Maybe clean power?  

It's not like I'm gonna make a warranty claim if the bulb fails in 5 years of 7 years.  I just do it for curiosity sake. 

Don't confuse the claimed lifespan with the length of the warranty!  I had some that were advertised with a long life span - I don't recall exactly how long - and when they failed before that I was all set to return them but the warranty was only 1 year.

I love LED bulbs. Now that they've gotten cheap, I see no situation where I'd rather have incandescent or florescent. They last much longer, run cooler, and use less power than incandescents, and they last MUCH longer, use less power, are less finicky, and cause less interference than florescent tubes. CFLs were always garbage, IMO. They're also more configurable, so you can buy stuff like this now:

The weakpoint of the bulbs is the circuitry that controls them. You can't just directly power the actual LEDs themselves.

This circuitry is very susceptible to heat damage.

Now, it has to be packed into a tiny little form factor and shoved into a space with little opportunity for cooling airflow.

Toyman! said:

matthewmcl said:

Companies that focus on quality go out of business because enough consumers prefer to pay less and buy E36 M3. Why do LEDs suck? The same reason aftermarket CV axles suck.

This^^

It's the race to the bottom.

yep :( 

LEDs you find in higher quality, industrial/commerical environments are generally very good as those customers have little patience for the bullE36 M3 consumers deal with.

I haven't had an issue with them. But whatever the appropriate color range at Lowe's. We've been here almost 6 years. 

Only on our 2nd porch light. 

z31maniac said:

I haven't had an issue with them. But whatever the appropriate color range at Lowe's. We've been here almost 6 years. 

Only on our 2nd porch light. 

How long is your light on daily?  Most LEDs advertise significantly longer lifespans than that.  To replace a light once in 6 years is much sooner than expected.

I have replaced a number of them in my house that are less than 5 years old.  Unfortunately I'm not great about documenting what brand they are so I can make sure I don't repeat the same mistake.

I've had a similar (not good) experience with LED bulbs.  I attribute it to the cheap Chinese circuitry that takes 120 volts down to what the LED's can use.  I've tried various brands at various price points, and there doesn't seem to be a clear indicator of quality.  Companies are in a blind rush to bring "green" products to market and don't much care about quality.  There's nothing unusual about my house current, and unlike many folks, I had really good luck with the CFL bulbs.  I had one burning 24-7 for like seven years outside my detached garage.  If I could still buy CFL's, I'd use them.

ProDarwin said:

 

LEDs you find in higher quality, industrial/commercial environments are generally very good as those customers have little patience for the bullE36 M3 consumers deal with.

Unless they suck just as bad. 

https://www.businessinsider.com/led-city-streetlights-turning-purple-broken-tech-danger-2022-11?op=1

1988RedT2 said:

ProDarwin said:

 

LEDs you find in higher quality, industrial/commercial environments are generally very good as those customers have little patience for the bullE36 M3 consumers deal with.

Unless they suck just as bad. 

https://www.businessinsider.com/led-city-streetlights-turning-purple-broken-tech-danger-2022-11?op=1

There are some seriously messed up conspiracy theories about those purple/blue lights. 

Over the past 2 years I've bought a couple dozen flat panel LED units for my garage and shops. I love them- they make nice even light, you can look right at them so there's no super bright spots, and they're pretty easy to install- plus super thin so they can tuck right up into the ceiling. Of all the ones I've bought, I had 1 dead out of the box. The manufacturer sent me a free replacement. All of them have been running a good couple hours per day with 0 failures so far. 

Car LEDs- zero failures. 

Screw in LED bulbs- have had some issues, particularly on fans or with dimmers. Yes, I have been using fan/dimmer rated bulbs. I feel like something about forcing the LEDs into the incandescent form factor makes them unhappy. Although, I will say, haven't had a failure of one of these in a year or so, so maybe they're getting better?